Rating: 
Summary: Classic David Lodge, Slightly Mellowed
Review: Yet another of David Lodge's satirical yet affectionate looks at university life. If you like David Lodge, you'll really like this one. If you're new, you'll find this an enjoyable introduction.Lodge uses many of his usual plot devices and writing techniques to good effect. The powerful professor, the midlife crisis, the extra-marital affair, the introspective affair-ee, the cross-currents with the students, the unexpected plot twist, and a couple of subplots. And, as Lodge fans know, no Lodge novel would be complete without an intellectual or literary construct (or two) to be worked out along with the plot. Here it all comes together with the two central characters, a professor who runs a center for research on artificial intelligence and a recently widowed visiting writer-in-residence teaching a creative writing seminar. They spar over his work, and she explores its implications in the exercises she gives her students, all reproduced in the book. (An exploration of what it would be like to be raised in a colourless world and then suddenly exposed to colour, written in the style of the author of your choice, for example.) Lodge maintains the balance between the constructs and the plot better than in some of his recent novels, and the overall plot and tone is wry and a bit mellow. Lodge has backed off the sharp, angry edge that characterizes some of this later work, making this a very pleasurable read. All in all I recommend this book without reservation.
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